In other words, Emmanuel Macron is the Donald Trump of the elite class. He’s not just their representative—he’s their avatar. Trump’s die-hard followers love him with such devotion not just because they like what he says, but because his image is that of the guy they wish they were or could be. It’s the same thing with Macron and his own elite base. And this is the stuff out of which Messianic movements are made.

The comparison is not perfect—for one thing, I have no problem with the idea of Macron having his finger over my country’s nuke button, while the idea of Trump with his finger over the American nuke button gives me cold sweats. But it gets at what I wish every American understood about Macron: His brand of pragmatic centrist politics is really just class-interest-based politics.

Why would I want to read an article about politics without any snark?! ;)

Now, Macron supporters don’t believe that they support him for the crass reason that he will benefit their class at the expense of the rest of the country; instead, they just believe that what’s good for them is good for the country.

I was talking to a friend the other day who was excited about a new party starting up in Sweden with the same schtick of abandoning right-left politics, instead going for the "scientifically determined" best policies decided through workshops. They've garnered some positive response in media through one of the founders being related to Raoul Wallenberg (of course ignoring the rest of the family). Looking through the rest of the leadership they mostly seem to consist of tech entrepreneurs and "social media innovators". I don't know where I'm going with this, maybe I've just been reading too much Henri Lefebvre lately, but this (relative) resurgence of belief in an objective representation of the world is really bothering me.

Niall Ferguson has argued that the era of prosperity from 1945 to 2001 wasn't due to globalism but the Pax Americana and after 2001, the Pax Americana crumbled.

If the general idea governing the "free world" since 1945 was supposed to be "I'd like to buy the world a coke" but was in actuality "Americaland uber alles" then the coke-buyers have been at a serious disadvantage ever since we decided South Asian refugees spilling all over Europe was A-OK with us. That's going to cause some painful realignment for everybody. Which, in turn, causes everyone to go "let's try something new!" without recognizing that the guys in position to try something new are the ones who were ahead before but hadn't bothered to play politics yet.

I'm really interested in the idea of class-based politics. It's worth finding a model of how something like this would pan out in modern America's democratic system. I don't think Duverger's law is so steadfast that a bicameral Congress can't get disrupted within 30 years at this point.

I know it sounds like I'm "falling for the trap," I'm actually just curious out of desperation for change.